North Dakota's largest farm fraud case not yet resolved

December 21, 2007

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - The government wants more money from a man who served more than four years in prison and forfeited nearly $4 million in what prosecutors said was North Dakota's largest farm fraud case. Duane Huber was released from prison last month. The Farm Service Agency, which runs federal farm programs, is trying to collect money it says Huber illegally got from farm program benefits. Huber's representative says the government is being unfair. ''The Hubers have been very cooperative and done what they were asked to do, and now they're being hassled again,'' said Huber's son-in-law, Doug Johnson, who is representing him in the case. Bryan Olschlager, a Farm Service Agency compliance director in Fargo, said Huber and a farm partnership owe farm program benefits from 1995 through 2000, though he would not say how much money is being sought. He said none of the money that Huber forfeited in the criminal case went to FSA. While U.S. District Judge Rodney Webb did not order Huber to repay money to FSA, he did not bar the agency from trying to collect it through administrative action, Olschlager said. Huber, a former Wimbledon farmer and insurance agent, was convicted in November 2002 of operating five sham farms in the 1990s. He was convicted on 19 charges, including conspiracy to defraud the government. He was sent to a minimum-security prison in Duluth, Minn., in July 2003 and ordered to forfeit about $3.9 million. Huber paid the money, exhausted all his appeals and served his prison time, said Irv Nodland, Huber's attorney in the criminal case. Johnson said Huber returned to Wimbledon after he was released from prison Nov. 14. The FSA state committee - a group of five federally appointed people from around the state - decided earlier this year to seek money from Huber and other members of a farming partnership: Jeff Greff of Regent, Jamie Schlecht of Wimbledon, Chad Bickett of Carrington and Steven Huber of Fargo, Duane's son. Neither Olschlager nor Johnson would say how much money the FSA wants. ''Each individual received a debt notification letter,'' and none of them knows what the others are alleged to owe, Olschlager said. Huber has appealed, and the FSA committee is meeting Thursday to rule on the appeal. Huber has several options if the appeal is denied, including taking the matter back to the courts, Johnson said. Duane Huber was the only person convicted in the criminal case. Webb dismissed charges against Steven Huber for lack of evidence. Greff, Bickett and Schlecht were granted immunity from prosecution. Webb also refused prosecutors' request for restitution, saying the conviction itself had ''taken a significant financial toll.'' Olschlager said that if Webb had ordered restitution, ''that would in all likelihood have taken care of FSA.'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Shon Hastings on Wednesday said she was awaiting approval from the Justice Department to release details on where the forfeiture money ended up. Johnson said he believes some of the money went to the federal Office of Inspector General and some to the federal Agriculture Department, which oversees FSA. ''The money is in the bank; they just don't have it in right account, in our opinion,'' he said. Nodland, who is not involved in the FSA case, said he has never been given a satisfactory answer on where the forfeited money went. ''It looks to me like they're trying to collect the same thing twice,'' he said of the government. During the criminal case, prosecutors said they could show losses of about $19 million, including farm program payments, crop insurance benefits and lost tax revenue. Webb called the estimate ''outlandish,'' and jurors in the case ordered Huber to surrender assets valued at $5.9 million. A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld the convictions against Huber but said jurors wrongly figured the forfeiture amount. Webb then reduced the amount to the $3.9 million.